A/N: Hello, Everyone! Well, it's been quite a year for me so far. Bronchitis and a lung infection, along with a kidney infection! Oh well. As long as I'm bed-ridden I might as well update! Besides I made you guys wait WAAAY too long last time! )

Disclaimer:Sorry, I don't own The Outsiders or the characters, but I do own the ones that you've never heard of, because I made them up!

Summary: Ponyboy asks a girl to help him train for track try-outs. But as their friendship forms he'll have to witness a lot of things that he never even imagined was real. The Drama ensues.

Ages: Ponyboy, 14 Jimmie Lee, 15

Runnin' Barefoot

Chapter: 6

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I was exhausted. But it was only the first day. That wasn't anything compared to the weeks that were ahead of me.

I guess that kind of goes without saying, though. By the next week I was completely out of it. I was hacking my brains out during school, and my entire body was completely numb well before then. I was even walking slower than usual. And what was worst of all was that I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me.

Two-Bit was, not surprisingly, having a ball with all of this. He didn't pass up a single moment to make fun of me and how much I was slipping. But once he figured it really bothered me, he eased up a little. But very little.

I wish that in the midst of all this I could say that I was at least improving. But in all reality I wasn't. We had been out 4 times already and I hadn't gotten any better. Jemima had questioned my seriousness on the matter more than once and it bugged the hell out of me. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. I was doing everything the same as I had before. But for some reason it just wasn't working. I had talked to Johnny about it a couple of times. He didn't really understand though. He wasn't really into anything athletic like. All he did was shrug when I asked him. We were out in the lot. It was pretty late, but not that late. Not late enough for Darry to ring me like a wet rag, anyway. Johnny had started a little flicker with some twigs and a match and I sat in front of it poking at it with a stick.

"Maybe yer gettin' sick." He suggested. I looked at him then shrugged. The nights were starting to get real frosty. But I didn't think that was the problem.

"I dunno." I mumbled. "Maybe."

"Maybe..." Johnny started.

"Maybe what?" He looked at me like he knew I wasn't going to like what he was going to say.

"Maybe you should quit smokin'." I snorted.

"You know I can't do that, Johnny." I said.

"Well golly, Ponyboy, what am I supposed to say?" He said defensively. His voice was still small, but I could tell the subject was annoying him. "I never did get why you liked to run so much. Don't make sense at all if y'ask me. Maybe you just don't like it no more."

I was getting more steamed by the minute. I rolled my eyes and threw the stick into the fire, making it spark more. I stood up and brushed my pants off.

"I'm goin' to the house. You gonna stay here?" I asked a little more sourly than I wanted to.

"No I'll stay here. I dunno, I'll probably stop by later." He answered.

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Johnny never did stop by. By the time I got to the front porch I had figured that he wouldn't. I knew I should've felt bad. I wanted to feel bad, but I couldn't. There were too many things on my mind to think about Johnny. I know it sounds kind of bad but it was the truth. Besides, Johnny had spent the night by himself plenty of times. I knew he'd be ok.

I walked in to see Darry sitting in the living room. I was a little surprised to be honest. It was pretty rare to see Darry just sitting around anywhere, even on a Friday night. Usually he was at work, or in his room, or out, or working out on the weight set, or ironing, doing laundry, anything. But never just sitting. But like I said, I had too many things on my mind to think about it. But this time I didn't have a choice.

"Hey Ponyboy, come here for a minute." He said.

"What do you want?" I asked. He looked up at me.

"Sit down, I wanna talk to you." I looked around and sighed. I was tired. All I wanted to do was just go to bed. I didn't feel like talking.

"Can't we talk about it later?" I asked.

"No. Sit." I sighed again, making sure that Darry heard it, and sat down on the couch facing him.

"Sodapop told me about you slipping up on your running." I groaned and stood. That was the last thing that I felt like talking about then, especially with Darry.

"Come on, Darry, I don't feel like talkin' about it!" I pleaded with him tiredly. His voice became more stern, and his eyes harder.

"I don't care if you don't feel like talking about it, I don't feel like watchin' my kid brother mopin' around all day everyday! Sit. Down." He said for the last time. I knew that I wasn't going to win this one. There is no winning when it came to arguing with Darry, I had learned that a long time ago. But that didn't mean I didn't try when the opportunity presented itself.

"Now, if you don't feel like talkin', fine. Don't. Just listen, got it?" I rested my head on my fist and nodded.

"Got it."

"Soda told me that you told 'im you were gettin' rusty. And you know how he is, he ain't really took sports all that seriously. He's all about kicks, that kid. So he came to me and asked me to talk to you."

I sat up at that minute and started to really pay attention to him.

"Now believe it or not, I had some problems too, with football."

"No, Darry. You?" I said dead-pan. I didn't want to show how much I was really interested in what he was saying. Darry? Having trouble with football? Ok, maybe if he told anyone else that, they wouldn't be that shocked, everybody slips up now and then. But when it came to me...well, that's like telling a little kid that Lassie was an alcoholic or something like that. I mean as hard as he was on me about my grades and homework and track, you'd think that he was always on top of his stuff. He was the captain and everything all through his senior year. And I couldn't help but get the feeling that I was the only one that he had ever told this to. Now I was leaning closer to him with my elbows on my knees and my chin resting on my fists.

"Yup." He said. "Just when I got to my junior year. That was my first year on the Varsity team, and boy if I wasn't shakin' in my pants when I went to our first practice."

"What happened?" I asked. About right then, I think Darry unknowingly stopped talking to me and started talking to himself. I only say that because he stopped looking at me and looked out into space, with that expression that one only gets when they are looking back on a nice memory. His face even softened. The icy frown that was usually glued to his face when he was trying to teach me a lesson was gone. His eyes were grinning and I almost jumped out of my pants when he chuckled. He looked up at me with a grin a half a mile wide on his face, and it made me grin too. This was the Darry that I used to get along with. The Darry that was here before mom and dad died. I was struck dumb.

"I screwed up." He said. He laughed for a while after that. "Big time. I missed almost every pass, I tripped about 5 times, my throwing was off..." He looked off again and shook his head. "Man, the assistant coach was ready to get rid of me right then and there."

"So...what happened." My good mood started to fade. This story wasn't helping as much as I thought it would.

"Well." He sighed. "I stayed after practice and talked to the coach. Turns out I was just too stressed out. Our varsity team had a perfect season the year before. That was a big load for all the new guys."

"What did you do?"

"I stayed after practice. The coach made me do everything from the basics. Had to relearn, Ponyboy. And then...well, you know the rest." He said, standing.

"When did he make you Captain, Darry?" I asked after he started to his room. He turned back around with that same grin.

"The next week." He answered. "G'night, Pony." He said.

"Night." I answered back.

I heard his door shut and started to wonder why I didn't ask Darry about it in the first place. He was the only one out of the whole gang that would really understand, and he was the last person I would've asked. I would have even asked Dallas before I went to Darry. And when I realized that I felt the guiltiest I had felt in a while. Me and Darry had drifted apart so much after mom and dad died that I wouldn't even go to him for advice anymore. I wouldn't even go to my own older brother for advice. Boy did that make me feel like trash. I sat back and closed my eyes, thinking about what he had said.

Maybe I needed to get back to the basics...

Well, there's another chapter! Again, I don't think that this is my best work, but I really didn't want to keep ANYBODY waiting as long as I made you wait last time. So please review and tell me what you think! Thanks for reading!